


To Finally Know the Taste of Your Frustration

by Sariel (ari0aki)



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Angst, Don't copy to another site, M/M, Yullen, commiseration and understanding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:21:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21895054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ari0aki/pseuds/Sariel
Summary: It's not easy to understand one another. The words may get jumbled, the meaning becoming obscured and unclear, and the feelings lost in a sea of insecurity and frustration. But what's for certain is that nothing can be gained from saying nothing at all. YullenFor Yullen Week 2k19 // Prompt: Understanding
Relationships: Kanda Yuu/Allen Walker
Comments: 9
Kudos: 65





	To Finally Know the Taste of Your Frustration

_I know everything. But I can’t say it. Why can’t you just get it already?_

Kanda almost wished Allen were still crying. Those pitiful tears he’d shed in frustration after baring his soul with his hand resting over his eyes, trying to maintain some semblance of dignity perhaps under Kanda’s unwavering gaze… That was infinitely more tolerable than the look he wore now. Hunched over the small mound of dirt on his hands and knees, Allen bore none of the anger, frustration, or anguish of only a few moments prior. No, the red-rimmed eyes of flesh rubbed raw from tears, and the pinched brows and trembling chapped lips of a mouth agape in disbelief, his was a stare of utter despair – of a man who had been thoroughly defeated by life – gaze fixed upon the ghosts of a distant past he’d long left behind.

_This is the place where I- Where “Allen” began…_

Kanda could say nothing under the oppressive silence. There were no words that came to mind that could begin to address the increasing emptiness in Allen’s eyes. So full of accusatory commentary earlier when he’d been heated by anger, he could now find nothing in the calm confusion to offer in way of commiseration. It seemed Allen was hardly conscious of anything anymore, the seconds bleeding into minutes that seemed to warp and stretch around him. Kanda didn’t know how long he’d been standing there unmoving, but the cramping of his fingers clenched around Mugen’s hilt suggested minutes had probably breached past the mark of an hour some time ago. Still, Allen had not moved.

A chill wind bid the few leaves yet clinging to nearby branches to join it in flight. The dry rustling became a cacophony of crinkling and cracking as they brushed each other in passing, some soaring far away while others fell off, scraping along the ground before stilling their brittle russet bodies. Cold. It had been cold even under the overcast sky only a short while ago, but it seemed more so now that the sun had already begun to set. The wind unsettled by the coming night bringing with it a briny scent from across the dismal grey-toned harbor, leeching the warmth from his body.

They couldn’t stay out there all night. Yet, the words caught in his throat. How to break the stillness that seemed like a physical wall barring him from Allen’s attention? How to draw him from whatever thoughts had dragged themselves up from the recesses of his memories? As brash and impulsive as he was, something about _this_ Allen, made it difficult for Kanda to intrude into that small circle of space surrounding the tree, the mound of dirt that he suspected was a grave, and Allen.

To Kanda’s surprise, Allen was the one to break the silence first. Standing abruptly, tipping his head back and inhaling a deep breath before exhaling in an exaggerated gust of a sigh.

“I suppose we should get going before the sun sets completely, the temperature will drop a lot more by nighttime,” Allen said, expression a calm mask of nonchalance.

“Oi Moya-”

“Hurry or I’ll leave you behind,” Allen said voice pitching slightly higher than usual as he cut Kanda off, beginning to walk briskly away from the cluster of buildings nearby.

Frown turning down the corner of his lips and eyes narrowing in suspicion Kanda followed, maintaining about a meter’s distance between them as he trailed Allen out of the small town they’d landed in – Eddystone. The dirt road wound up and out amidst the grassy hills, the bay of the English Channel coming into view as they breached the crest of one of the taller hills. If Allen was concerned about the cold, it seemed a strange choice to distance himself from the minimal protection the town buildings offered from the sea breeze. And yet with the practiced monotony of someone who’s worn his own trenches into the dirt he now walked, Kanda could feel no hesitation in Allen. He had a destination in mind. 

“Where are we going?”

For a moment Kanda thought Allen wouldn’t answer him, as his words were swallowed up by the wind, but those sure steps came to a halt, Allen’s posture bearing the tension of his uncertainty.

“There’s an old lighthouse on the cape a few miles south of town…”

His voice shook with unease, but he stood his ground against the invisible foe that was his past, which seemed to lurk in Kanda’s innocent question.

“Since they built the one on the reef, they stopped using it. We should be able to stay there until morning without bothering anyone.”

Sure enough the lighthouse was where Allen had said it would be. It had come into view shortly after cresting a hillock further down the path. A truly old thing, still standing with the pride of something that has weathered many hardships, but showing the wear and fatigue of maintaining the guise when it had already been abandoned and left to ruin.

The door moaned a deep lonely sound as Allen pushed it open, boots thumping over the floorboards and stirring dust that didn’t seem to have been disturbed in many years, save for tiny mouse like footprints kept close to the walls and cracked crates piled under the stairs.

“Why are you always picking such decrepit old places?”

The question came before Kanda had a chance to properly think it over. Simple questions. Seemingly insignificant questions. But questions that rose from a place inside him that just really wanted to understand.

Since the moment they’d met Allen Walker had always been an enigma of sorts. To see what was behind that mask of his was perhaps more difficult an endeavor than most would ever be willing to attempt. If there was something that Kanda _did_ understand about Allen from their first mission together what seemed like a lifetime ago, was that no matter the face he showed, his heart was always bleeding. But that wound was something he guarded with the utmost security. A wound he wouldn’t let anyone touch or try to heal.

Hypocritical, as he was always throwing himself headfirst into other people’s problems, touching their silent suffering and listening for the screams that their souls uttered with pleading but that their voices could find no way to express. Pains that normal people couldn’t hope to ever touch were those that Allen always found himself drowning in.

“If Apocryphos was to attack, the townspeople would be in danger. It’s not good for me to stay where other people are.”

Allen’s voice was a distant calm, so unlike the wind beating at the outer walls of the old lighthouse. There was none of the resentfulness that rightfully should be there. Why wasn’t he angry? Why didn’t he curse the circumstance that pushed him even further away from the found family that would defy their orders and riot against everything they’d ever believed in for him? Why didn’t he cry for just how unfair it was that he’d been forced to leave after finally finding the warmth of a world that might accept him – a world full of fucked up orphans, strays and freaks just like him – where they were perhaps just a little less fucked up when together?

“That thing doesn’t feel. It doesn’t have remorse. It’ll kill anyone that it deems a threat – anyone that stands in its way.”

Still that mask. Still not willing to open up. Just the sparsest delivery of facts. Answering the questions without elaboration or flourish. Trying to be a stable rock amidst a current when he was no more than a wayward leaf carried on the storm.

What Kanda knew was that the tears Allen shed were never for himself. But he wanted to know more.

Allen had restarted Kanda’s stagnant withering time. Allen had given him so much, and he felt the heat of his blood warm like a life he never thought he’d get to live rush through him. It was as strong as the steady beat of his heart and warm like a freedom he’d never thought he’d have. Kanda wanted to grant Allen even a modicum of the freedom he’d received. But how to bridge this seemingly insurmountable divide? How to be the pillar at his back when he refused to stay still? How to protect him when he spent all his time just trying to catch him?

How to say the words when they were so foreign to him?

He didn’t want to lose him.

He would hold onto him no matter what came.

He would protect him or fucking die trying because he’d finally found something worth the blood he shed in this world.

But how to get him to understand? Why couldn’t _they_ understand? Where was the failing? Where was the miscommunication? Kanda had come back for him. Kanda had followed him. Kanda knew only harsh words and his sword but he…

Fuck, why was it so hard to do anything but fight and bicker?

“If you don’t like the place, you’re more than welcome to go find an inn in the town,” Allen said interrupting Kanda’s thoughts.

“What?”

“You’re glaring as if you want to set this place on fire,” Allen said from his perch on the stairs, leaning on a banister that didn’t look like it could support the weight of a butterfly much less a person.

“You shouldn’t go up there, come back down before it collapses from under you.”

Kanda’s words were gruff with dissatisfaction, but they were those that sounded like concern, weren’t they? He’d managed to express that much, hadn’t he?

“It’s not like a fall from such a pitiful height would kill me anyway. You should know, you stabbed me right through once and it didn’t quite take,” Allen said, shrugging an easy indifference despite the weight of the words that had been said.

Bristling at the memory Kanda’s gaze hardened. Stupid! Why could he say things so easily without a care? What was he thinking behind words like those? That time had been different! That time he’d been-

“You are rather durable despite your looks,” Kanda said.

Allen’s brow twitched.

No, those weren’t the right words! What _were_ the right words? Why was this so difficult?

“You know you don’t _have_ to respond if you’re just going to be as annoying as that,” Allen muttered crossing his arms over the banister, staring down at Kanda from just a few steps up.

“I said come down from there,” Kanda said reaching for Allen’s hand, fingers clasping around the dark hard skin of the innocence.

Allen blinked before tugging back on his wrist a bit to test the grip, confused.

“What is this, Kanda?” Allen asked as he pulled his hand away, holding it almost protectively to his chest as though wary that Kanda was trying to play some sort of trick on him.

“It’s nothing, just… About before.”

It was now or never. Just ask. Just ask.

“What did you mean by the place where you began?”

Again, that distant glassy gaze, as though Allen were seeing past him to some other time, his hands falling to his sides and his throat bobbing as he swallowed.

“That… Just forget about it, there’s no need to concern yourself with-”

“Quit being fucking stupid! I asked so just say it. Or what? You can only play around in others’ memories but don’t have the spine to share your own?”

This wasn’t how he’d wanted to ask, but-

“You don’t even care, so why bother? It doesn’t matter what happened then, it’s all in the past.”

“Fuck, you piss me off!”

Thumb resting on the guard of his sword Kanda’s fingers twitched as if to draw, barely restraining the urge to draw and just demand that Allen explain the things he wanted to know. He didn’t _want_ to fight! That’s not what this was about, but why was this so fucking hard?

“Well congratulations, the feeling is mutual,” Allen huffed skipping the couple steps, landing on the floor with a thud that shook the foundations of the lighthouse, plumes of dust curling up from the floor and shaking free of the rafters above.

Seizing Allen by the collar, Kanda forced his attention, glare sharp and jaw tight. He wanted to ask. He wanted to ask again and try to move past this but-

Eyes narrowing, Allen shoved Kanda back. However, the grip on him didn’t falter and he fell forward into Kanda as the swordsman stepped back to brace Allen’s weight. They’d barely stalled like that for a second, breaths harsh puffs amidst the cloud of dust before the wood beneath Kanda’s foot gave way with a loud splintering crack, his leg disappearing into the hole, the backward momentum taking them both down to the ground in a cursing mess, the yet unbroken floorboards creaking and groaning under the pressure in protest.

“Damnit Kanda, what the hell do you want from me?”

Kanda’s eyes widened in surprise at the outburst, glancing up from his back to where Allen sat astride his hips pinning him with a weight that was unnervingly light. Caught in idle thoughts wondering if Allen really hadn’t been eating enough, Kanda almost missed the moment the tame irritation snapped into… something far more raw and anguished, mismatched hands fisting in the lapels of his coat to draw his straying attention.

“Why are you here? To kill me? To help me? Which is it? You’re following me all over bloody creation and I still don’t understand why. I’m tired of you chasing me. I’m tired of trying to guess at what you’re thinking behind that constipated expression of yours.”

“What I want? I’m repaying my debt for what you’ve done for me.”

Kanda saw it then too, the slight narrowing of those steel grey eyes, the suspicion that lay there before Allen’s brows raised in bewilderment. But what was so difficult to understand about such words, Kanda couldn’t even guess. He thought of his words again but he could find no fault in them – no ambiguity. So why that look? 

“That’s it? For something like that? Your stupid duty?”

Brows creasing to match Allen’s displeasure, Kanda’s lips curled back in a sneer. “Don’t mock my resolve.”

“I don’t want to be an obligation, Kanda. I don’t want to be the thing you’re forced to deal with… Especially not here like this.”

Allen sagged against him, his arms falling slack though not letting go.

That… resignation… what was it? What did it mean?

“I don’t understand why you’re angry.”

“What?” Allen asked, the tired frustration warping into confusion.

“Why you’re angry, I don’t understand.”

“What part of that didn’t you understand? Coming back to The Order, almost getting killed by Apocryphos, even following me here. All that because of some stupid debt? What the hell is that Kanda? You don’t even consider us friends, so why the hell are you forcing yourself to be here?”

“Forcing myself…” Kanda parroted as if saying it himself would help him understand the feeling behind Allen’s irritation. "This debt for me isn’t _forced._ ”

“What?”

“You don’t understand, for me, this is my freedom. I chose this. To be here, to be with you, I _chose_ this. This isn’t an order I’m _forced_ to follow, this is the resolve that’s testament to the will you gave me. This debt for me is gratitude.”

The furrow of Allen’s brow deepened, mouth hanging slightly agape as he searched his scattered thoughts for a coherent response.

“This… This is your gratitude? Cutting my tie, threatening to slice my neck… To kill me… That’s gratitude to you?”

“Well that’s because you piss me off, but what you did for me and Alma, you gave us that freedom. Is it so hard to understand that I want to free you too?”

Allen flushed to his ears in embarrassment at the surprisingly candid statement.

“Not the innocence?”

“What?”

“This isn’t because of the innocence or The Order? You really came back… for me?”

“Why the hell is that so hard to believe?”

Allen hadn’t known what the heck it was that had come over Kanda. The strange softening of concern that had hovered in the silence after Allen identified their location. Well, soft was perhaps an exaggeration, but what else could he call the way those stiff gestures were just a little more careful, and that constipated expression just a little more… searching. But to hear it was because Kanda really was just… What? Worried about him? Thankful for what he’d done? That somewhere in that cobalt stare that lacked the condescending edge Allen was used to, Kanda was… trying to understand him? Trying to find a way to “free” him?

Hard to believe? If the words hadn’t come from Kanda himself, Allen would never have guessed in a million years that was what lay in those brooding silences and rough displays of concern.

Why? He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t say it was because even as much as Cross had grown fond of him and Mana had taken care of him, that the people closest to him had only taken him in because of what use he could serve – a vessel, the musician, the ark – even to The Order Allen had been just a soldier that could be made to dance and break himself for their cause. Sure he’d found precious people to him at The Order, and even Johnny had chased after him as a friend. But that Kanda – the emotionally constipated Kanda – would come after him out of such a naively innocent motivation such as to free him was too ridiculous for words!

Hanging his head, fingers loosening their hold to rest lightly atop Kanda’s chest Allen laughed, lips splitting into the most twisted picture of despairing amusement. Even lying there looking up at him Kanda’s eyes reflected the stirring apprehension there. Alarmed as Allen’s body shook with laughter, but clearly not knowing what to make of it. Even to Allen’s ears the sound strained with bitterness.

Just as Kanda’s lips parted as if to speak, Allen’s laughter died. He could feel his mask cracking. Tiny fragments of a self he’d long ago replaced filtering through the slim fissures. 

“A debt to me is obligation. A debt to me is atonement.” Allen said, voice sharp and unwelcoming as he sat back against Kanda’s hips, looking down at him where he lay.

“The me that’s here now- Even before Nea started to resurface, I had always been wearing Mana’s mask because that is my atonement. Even this name… Allen. It was never mine. Allen was the name of Mana’s dog. You want to know what this place means to me? What that tree and that grave means to me?”

His words cut across his tongue, stinging like acid in long festering wounds.

“ _That_ was Allen. That was where Allen died and where _I_ began. The thing was beaten to death by a stupid jealous, sadistic clown. Me and that dog are the same... When I resolved to take this name I thought that for Mana I would become his dog. An abandoned stray sold as a _freak_ to a circus. An abandoned stray with a broken master, it was the same, right? One dirty damaged unwanted stray was the same as any other, right?”

Allen’s lips quivered around his words, teeth biting into each painful admission, as Kanda listened without a word.

A self-deprecating scoff fell from his lips. Such attentiveness to another's rambling insecurities really didn't suit Kanda at all, and he hated that he wasn't able to play it off this time like some bad joke, some inconsequential tick in the hundreds of thousands of seconds his life had been composed of. 

“Or do you think that I was wrong? Maybe I shouldn’t have become Allen? What do you think, huh Kanda? I’ve been passed around and I’ve lost both my masters, what’s left but to take this curse with me to my grave? That you would want to free me is so ridiculous a concept that I can’t even comprehend it. What do you want to free me from Kanda? Tell me, what does it really mean to be free?”

His words broke. Tears hot with frustration glistening glassy before trailing their heavy anguish over his cheeks – but there was no relief within them. The tension building in him refused to ebb and Allen felt it choking him.

Dumbfounded. Kanda, for what must have been the first time in forever, felt his heart legitimately ache. What could he do? What could he say? Allen had always looked broken to him; but here like this, the poorly patched picture was falling to pieces and he didn’t know if he could catch all the pieces before they fell too far from him to ever be put back together.

“Kindness, compassion, love… Those aren’t things someone like me deserves, Kanda. Everything I touch turns to ash, and all the people I care about meet terribly unfortunate and bloody ends. Whether it’s you or Johnny or Lenalee trying to _save_ me, I don’t want it.”

Kanda could feel Allen’s gaze as it raked over his expression, trying to understand, as if trying to gauge what he thought now that he had the truth he’d asked for.

“I’m going to die one day just like Allen, but I’ll at least try to take this whole mess with me. This though… I don’t deserve whatever this is you’re trying to offer. Even knowing that, would you stay?”

He didn’t have to think about it. The answer in him was clear since the moment he’d set out to find Allen. To stay with him despite everything? Yes, that’s why he was here.

A sword calloused hand lifted, brushing back the bangs that had fallen into Allen’s face, the gentle gesture causing Allen’s eyes to widen.

“Wha-”

Surprise. Fear. The mask Kanda thought he’d never see behind had already begun to crack.

“Yes.”

Lifting his other hand, both settling to cup Allen’s cheeks, the softness of them beneath his palms feeling warm like a satisfaction and desire Kanda had never known.

Suspicion furrowed Allen’s brows and pursed his lips tight. The cracks splintered like spider webs across the surface, the pieces beginning to fall away revealing the vulnerable damaged creature behind it.

“I won’t leave.”

Allen’s weight shifted atop him uneasily, though he didn’t pull away. Gaze searching, anxious.

Tilting Allen’s face towards him Kanda knocked their foreheads lightly, the space between them thick with mingled breaths. He’d protect this.

“No matter what comes…”

Hope. A broken whine escaped Allen as Kanda’s words whispered against his lips, his fingers curling in the fabric of Kanda’s coat.

He’d defy all odds and show him what it meant to be free.

“I’ll stay.”

They weren’t complicated words. They weren’t particularly articulate words. But in that moment as Kanda closed the slim distance between them, with Allen’s pliant lips tasting the salty flavor of his frustration, he was sure at least this much was understood. The rest? The rest would come with time.

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been fairly dead in this fandom for a while, but I still love yullen to death… I’ve kept up with the manga and actually have been writing stuff on and off but I’ve been having a hard time finishing things. I get an idea and write a scene and then it’s just left floating in limbo with nothing to tie it down. But that sort of goes for more than just dgm. For a while now, I’ve found it difficult to finish hobby projects that I’ve started. Everything feels like it just takes so long and I’m always so tired haha ^^; 
> 
> I honestly don’t see myself getting any other prompts filled but I did want to contribute something. I had originally started writing this after chapter 230 first came out. The moment Allen saw the words carved into the tree and realized where they were really hit me hard. I’d read a bit of the reverse novels some time ago, so I sort of knew where this was heading and to finally have reached this point after so long... It really felt like touching a raw nerve.
> 
> It’s not much but please accept my humble contribution to the week in honor of two of my favorite idiots.
> 
> Thank you for your time, I hope you've found it was worth spending here. Comments are very much welcomed and appreciated!


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